ST. LOUIS – Lauri Harsy is a field canvasser and recall specialist for a third-party company Stellantis hired to track down owners of recalled vehicles and schedule repairs on faulty Takata airbags.
“They range from 2003s to 2015s. They’re all Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram. I’m on a team of about 22. We’re all across the United States,” Harsy said.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, approximately 67 million Takata airbags from more than 42 million vehicles in the U.S. have been recalled because these airbags can explode when deployed. While Harsy’s work is focused on Stellantis, vehicles from nearly 20 other automakers are part of this recall. At the end of 2022, 11 million airbags still hadn’t been replaced. The problematic air bags are responsible for killing more than two dozen people in the U.S. and injuring more than 400.
“We just don’t want anyone else hurt. We don’t want to see any more deaths,” Harsy said. “We’re out there trying to find these vehicles and get them their free repair. We have a mobile tech that come on site…to fix the vehicle and everything is free. The repair takes less than an hour.”
Harsy said she and her colleagues are being pushed away by the very people they’re trying to help.
“We’re having the darndest time with people opening their doors to us. We see the vehicle in the parking lot. We can actually sometimes see the people inside the house watching us and they will not open their doors,” Harsy said. “They think we’re some sort of scam.”
FOX 2 followed Harsy less than two miles to her second stop. Upon arriving, she noticed someone in a car in the driveway of the home that she was scheduled to check on.
“I ultimately ended up having to leave my information and hope somebody calls me back, so I can help this lady and help possibly keep her from having a tragedy,” she said.
Upset but unphased, Harsy left us with a sobering analogy before leaving for her next stop.
“If you had a cancer cell in your body and someone said, ‘Hey, that could explode at any time and kill you, but there’s a doctor two streets down that will come to you and fix that for free and you won’t have to worry about it,’ wouldn’t you do that? It’s the same thing. That’s a ticking time bomb in your car, ready to go off at any minute,” she said.